http://www.jacksonfish.com/blog/2011/10/24/tiny-tower-when-did-videogames-get-ruined/ Handmade Software Experiences Sat, 21 Apr 2012 17:19:17 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 http://www.jacksonfish.com/blog/2011/10/24/tiny-tower-when-did-videogames-get-ruined/comment-page-1/#comment-62757 Tiny Tower is taking over my life - Coffee, Poetry & (Unsent) Letters Wed, 04 Apr 2012 11:11:25 +0000 http://www.jacksonfish.com/?p=3015#comment-62757 [...] Tiny Tower – When did videogames get ruined? (jacksonfish.com) [...] [...] Tiny Tower – When did videogames get ruined? (jacksonfish.com) [...]

]]> http://www.jacksonfish.com/blog/2011/10/24/tiny-tower-when-did-videogames-get-ruined/comment-page-1/#comment-62667 Crazy_Joe Thu, 02 Feb 2012 02:44:30 +0000 http://www.jacksonfish.com/?p=3015#comment-62667 In-app purchases have destroyed video games. The dearth of games that have people doing inane tasks endlessly, encouraging sometimes even hundreds of dollars of in-app purchases for "game", "coins", or whatever is the ultimate insult and banal almost beyond comprehension. The iTunes App store was initially a great, innovative place for new talent. Now it's a race to the bottom to find which graphical icons will encourage the most exchange of real money for total worthlessness. I paid $5 for a premium game a couple of years ago on iTunes which through an update that I didn't notice converted the entire game to this cash cow version. They completely ruined the gameplay. You literally cannot do anything in the game without spending money on for "dollars" that buy you any of hundreds of in-game items that have nothing to do with the theme of the game. Literally every action you take in the game results in a pop-up window asking if you want to make an in-app purchase. There is no way to revert to the previous version of the game before they completely destroyed it, so they basically stole my $5. This is from a MAJOR publisher! This disgusting practice has become so lucrative that it's now fully infecting desktop gaming such as with Steam. Instead of releasing a whole game, huge portions are cut out before sale and then released sometimes right along with the game as DLC packs. It's now just a matter of creating some purposeless, goal-less eye candy that will keep people paying to continue the pointless experience. It's crass, disgusting, worse than gambling, borderline fraudulent and gaming is ruined as a result. On the other side of it, a lot of lazy, ethic-less developers are surely becoming overnight millionaires. In-app purchases have destroyed video games. The dearth of games that have people doing inane tasks endlessly, encouraging sometimes even hundreds of dollars of in-app purchases for “game”, “coins”, or whatever is the ultimate insult and banal almost beyond comprehension. The iTunes App store was initially a great, innovative place for new talent. Now it’s a race to the bottom to find which graphical icons will encourage the most exchange of real money for total worthlessness. I paid $5 for a premium game a couple of years ago on iTunes which through an update that I didn’t notice converted the entire game to this cash cow version. They completely ruined the gameplay. You literally cannot do anything in the game without spending money on for “dollars” that buy you any of hundreds of in-game items that have nothing to do with the theme of the game. Literally every action you take in the game results in a pop-up window asking if you want to make an in-app purchase. There is no way to revert to the previous version of the game before they completely destroyed it, so they basically stole my $5. This is from a MAJOR publisher! This disgusting practice has become so lucrative that it’s now fully infecting desktop gaming such as with Steam. Instead of releasing a whole game, huge portions are cut out before sale and then released sometimes right along with the game as DLC packs. It’s now just a matter of creating some purposeless, goal-less eye candy that will keep people paying to continue the pointless experience. It’s crass, disgusting, worse than gambling, borderline fraudulent and gaming is ruined as a result. On the other side of it, a lot of lazy, ethic-less developers are surely becoming overnight millionaires.

]]> http://www.jacksonfish.com/blog/2011/10/24/tiny-tower-when-did-videogames-get-ruined/comment-page-1/#comment-62626 Cato Wed, 26 Oct 2011 05:45:54 +0000 http://www.jacksonfish.com/?p=3015#comment-62626 Your concluding solution, if these things don't die out soon enough, sounds right on to me. Knowing that my progress is deliberately slowed and that I'm on a path where my choices don't matter has, for the first time, helped me to quit my gaming habit. Maybe my kind of fun is being pushed to the wayside because I'm not the big spender -- I've milked Heroes II harder than it was ever meant to be for $10 -- but I am a buyer, but now what? So I intend to take a turn at the wheel and come up with my own next time I want something new, because all of this cloud stuff is crap. Your concluding solution, if these things don’t die out soon enough, sounds right on to me. Knowing that my progress is deliberately slowed and that I’m on a path where my choices don’t matter has, for the first time, helped me to quit my gaming habit. Maybe my kind of fun is being pushed to the wayside because I’m not the big spender — I’ve milked Heroes II harder than it was ever meant to be for $10 — but I am a buyer, but now what? So I intend to take a turn at the wheel and come up with my own next time I want something new, because all of this cloud stuff is crap.

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